Run.Fit.Kin.

May 23, 2013
by MegG
18 Comments

BLEND Retreat 2013

What a fabulous, indulgent and memorable weekend! It was such a treat to travel to Park City, stay at a beautiful resort and meet other health and fitness bloggers who wanted to workout, eat great food,explore and take a million pictures, just like me!

(Thanks to Travis and Lindsay for the group pic!)

I was literally the second person to arrive since I woke up so early to workout at Salt Lake City CrossFit, then wrote a post and had time to spare before heading over to Park City (about 20 mins from where I was staying in Salt Lake). I had a huge brunch at The Blue Plate Diner, and then made my way to the Hyatt Escala Lodge.

I checked in and got all my swag, which I had to dig through right away!

I was sharing a small room with three other bloggers who I didn’t know. That could be a dicey situation, but after having a great bloggie-roommate experience at Fitbloggin with Sana, Ericka and Gabby (who I love keeping in touch with!) I was way less nervous about meeting and getting to know my newest roommates. I thought about heading out of the hotel and exploring Park City while I had some time to burn, but after charging my phone I decided to head downstairs and see if I could find anyone I “internet know” (ie I follow their blog and comment but may not know very well in real life). I headed over to the expo room and finally bumped into Lindsay who I hadn’t seen yet. Big hugs were given, I missed seeing this lady in real life!

I helped set up the snack time (sponsored by Attune Foods and Justin’s nut butter) with Katie and soon enough ladies were pouring in to grab some nut butter and graham crackers.

(Lindsay’s picture)

After meeting Lisa, chatting with Laura, and a whole bunch of other very friendly bloggers, I met my roommates and we headed upstairs to change for the cocktail party. I had packed light and wasn’t thrilled with the dress I had packed. It’s weird trying to decide what to wear for these things. Now that I work from home and coach, I basically live in workout gear, so getting dressed up has become more foreign to me (literally last time I packed a bunch of dresses while traveling, I was in Paris, not Park City!). Also, I have a problem caring all that much, until the last minute when I’m like, “shit, everyone is going to look way cuter than me, I should have brought a better dress!” I still can’t care all that much, especially because no one else really does.

The cocktail hour was fun, I got to know my roommate Stephanie, we mingled around and also took a photobooth pic together!

Super fun idea Blend ladies!

After cocktails we headed over to dinner which was delicious, and where I met Amy, Vanessa and got to chat with Laura who I met briefly at the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco last year. It was nice to share dinner with such a fun and interesting group of women. The highlight on the food side of things was of course the dessert.

Chobani Panna Cotta

I was pretty beat after dinner and my roommates and I headed up to bed and lights were out around 10 or 10:30. None of us slept particularly well, the room was super hot, but we managed to drag our butts out of bed to make it to the GPP Fitness class.

I worked out next to Lindsay, which was motivating! I found myself needing to scale on the burpees though! I feel like I’m a record holder for slowest burpees ever, Linds kicked some serious butt and got every rep. The warm-up was super fun, we did these 50m sprints to dead stops that definitely made me sore the next day.

(All GPP pic’s are Lindsay’s)

After the workout we had a breakfast that was provided by Laughing Cow and Muesli Fusion another great menu with delicious food. (You guys know me, I’m not big on taking pictures of food, it normally doesn’t last long enough for me to remember to snap a picture!).

From breakfast we had a decision to go for the ProBar Sponsored hike or stay in for zumba, I bundled up, deciding to brave the rain and go for the hike. It actually didn’t rain much during the hike and while SUPER muddy (I really should have taken a picture of my shoes afterwards!) it was great. I love hiking. After we hit about 2 miles we then took pictures:

(pic from fitcupcaker)

And I decided to run down the hill. I’m figured it’s good practice because I have the running portion of Ski to Sea this weekend and the elevation drop of 2,200ft over 8 miles is going to require some strong downhill skills. I’ll actually probably grab my ProBar Bolts, they taste better than Sharkies with and they’re bigger like the Shot Bloks.

After I got back and showered, I met up with Vanessa, Amy and Christine and we headed over to the Waldorf Astoria for a spa day. First we had an amazing lunch at their restaurant Slopes:

I had the short rib sliders, which were decadent. After filling our bellies we were ready to relax at the spa. Our appointments were at 4:30 so we had a lot of time to spare, we took advantage of the steam rooms, the hot stone chairs and the lounge area.

(Source)

After 80 minutes of a deep tissue massage, which was incredible, Christine and I headed back to the hotel. I was getting really hungry so luckily I ran into my roomie Paula and tagged along with her and some other ladies to get Sushi on Main Street.

It was great to meet Amber, Maren, Paula, Tess and Miranda.

I definitely felt like I met a lot more people during this blog “conference” than fitbloggin. Maybe because I was more willing to join along on things and not afraid to introduce myself that this experience was different. We also had so much more time to actually hang out, which was really nice and obviously makes it more of a retreat.

After a bit of shopping with Paula, we headed back to the room where I realized I wanted to crawl into bed, but I headed up to the scone party just to say a quick hello. It looked like a lot of fun, but I was ready to snooze.

The next morning I wasn’t feeling awesome so I decided to skip the morning GPP workout. I almost sort of wish I hadn’t because it looked like another good one, but I knew that I’d be going to Park City CrossFit on Monday and I wanted to be rested for that WOD. Instead I slept in a bit and then started packing. I couldn’t believe the weekend was over so soon!

Awesome roomies! Lindsey from runstretchrepeat, Paula from fromfriestofit and Steph from wholesomebydesign

During the Chobani breakfast (which was another really great meal, seriously, the food over the weekend was delicious, not what I expected at all!) I started to ask around about plans in the afternoon. It turned out the Taylor and Meighan were staying in Salt Lake that night. I was determined to go bobsledding (yes in the summer, and yes I was like THE ONLY person interested in this). I really wish I had bought the helmet rig for my GoPro because it was an experience that is hard to describe!

Thanks to Taylor for taking some pictures!

Basically, we got to the Olympic Park, I sat in a room that looped a video of some rules that I quickly forgot (all I could remember was, if it flips duck down.) Then the three of us were driven up to the top of the course. I was fitted for a helmet, met the driver and the other person who I was going to ride with and got to choose what seat to sit in. The 4th position was the “most aggressive” the second position was the least. I wimped out and went for number 2. Suddenly I was in the sled grabbing onto the straps inside, being told to keep my back straight the entire time or else my body would get sucked into the sled by the force. (Basically it pushes you down so your head ends up by your knees if you don’t keep your back straight). I was also told to push on the pads with outside of my forearm to stay steady. Then with a big push, I was on my way down an Olympic Bobsled course.

We ended up hitting 66mph and they said it was a G-force of about 3 or 4, the winter sleds get up to 5 (um I don’t even really know what that means, but cool!). I can say with confidence that it was worth it and one of the coolest things I’ve done. I LOVE rollercoasters, so this was right up my alley.

Afterwards we got a quick tour and a great view from the top of the ski jumps in the park:

The weather looked like it was holding out so we decided to head over to the Red Butte Garden. Taylor was on a mission to make sure I explored more of the area, and so we ended up finding all these great trails around the garden. It was awesome!

Taylor and Meg at the start of our mini hike.

It was great to spend the day with these ladies. We found a vegetarian place to eat after leaving the Garden, and that was another favorite meal of the trip.

Peanut Pad Thai!

I said goodbye to the girls after they dropped me off at my car and I headed back to Park City to stay another night there. That was the official end of my Blend Retreat. I’ll write a (much shorter!) post about my drop in at Park City CrossFit (spoiler: It was a great experience!) tomorrow.

A huge thank you to Blend Organizers Lindsay, Janetha and Katie, and to sponsors Chobani, Silk, GPP Fitness, Green Mountain Coffee, BluePrint Cleanse ( I won a 3 day cleanse from them at the raffle! I’m excited and scared to try this out. I won’t do it until after training for my half!) amoung many more (go to Blendretreat.com to see the others).

May 17, 2013
by MegG
4 Comments

Dropping In: Salt Lake City CrossFit

I just realized that I should start a series in which I review the CrossFit gyms that I drop in at since I do it all the time!

Since starting CrossFit I’ve been to:

StoneWay CrossFit (my first box, attended there for over a year)

Tamalpais CrossFit (this would later become my “home away from home” gym) (San Rafael, CA)

San Francisco CrossFit

CrossFit 808 (Hawaii)

CrossFit Warwick (New York)

Mercer Island CrossFit (Washington)

CrossFit Harbor East (Baltimore)

CrossFit GVA (Geneva Switzerland)

5B CrossFit (Sun Valley, Idaho)

CrossFit Mettle (San Antonio, TX)

Hideaway CrossFit (San Antonio, TX)

Emerald City CrossFit (my home box in Seattle)

Salt Lake City CrossFit

I’ll be adding Park City CrossFit to this list before the end of my current trip since I’m planning on heading into a class there on Monday. I’m still kicking myself for not finding a box in London (there are plenty, we just didn’t make the time) and I’m bummed Reebok hadn’t opened their CrossFit Louvre in Paris yet when I was last there. Next time I go, I will definitely get a WOD in.

But back to SLC CrossFit. I’m not going to lie, I chose this gym late last night because of the WOD. CHERRY PICKER!! I was originally going to go to Brickwall CrossFit, but when I saw their WOD on facebook and saw overhead squats I started looking for different options. I will do them at my home box where my people know my problems. I look at it this way, I know what my problems are, and so do my home coaches, I don’t want to take time from away from a coach who doesn’t know me and is not invested in me. I’d want them making sure their members are safe and happy rather than worry about me as a drop-in. Yes there’s potential I could learn some new cues that might help or they would have a certain way of demoing that would make things click, but today I wasn’t up for it.

So I chose SLC and their WOD was totally in my wheel house.

5 Rounds

200m Run

15 KB swings (35)

15 box jumps (18in)

18 inches is a small box for me since I’m used to the 20 and I don’t mind the 24. Their location wasn’t too hard to find and parking was super easy (and free!). I walked in and found they do things slightly different, the warm-up is written on the board and you have until 7:10 to complete it. You don’t have to wait for any other members. I ended up tagging on with a guy who’s been going to SLC CF for about 5 months and is really enjoying it.

After the warm-up we got to the strength which was bench press.

We had to do 80% of our One Rep Max for 20 reps.

I just recently found my max on one of our open skill days so I was happy I knew what weight to work off of (75lbs). I’ve never done a strength for reps like that, it was pretty cool.

After the strength we moved into the WOD and the coach told us it was a pretty quick one today. The fastest time so far was around 12 minutes.

We got our equipment and headed out the door. In typical me fashion I took the first run out way too fast. It didn’t feel bad until the third round where I actually had to put my kettlebell down on my 9th rep because I was getting a bit nauseous. I was also a hot mess of snot and tears (my eyes water whenever I run recently, don’t worry this WOD didn’t make me cry, only overhead squats and wall balls break me down emotionally).

I was ahead of everyone with one guy close behind me so I got back to it. I finished the rest of the rounds unbroken with very little rest.

I was happy with my time and really put my all into it. I had to walk outside and catch my breath for a good couple of minutes after I was done. Overall a great and pretty typical experience. I stayed afterwards and chatted awhile with the coach and a couple of the members. They are a really nice group and seem to have a nice big community. They were doing a full box competition tonight which I thought was interesting. We like to do full box fun wods or charity wods, but haven’t done any team competitions or anything yet at ECCF. Salt Lake City’s facility is so large they definitely have the room to run a bunch of heats. They have very tall ceiling, a nice rig and a kid’s area. Definitely a box to check out if you’re in town or want to start crossfitting in Salt Lake City.

I’m now going to check out of my hotel grab a late breakfast somewhere and start making my way to Park City. So excited to meet some new Blends!

May 16, 2013
by MegG
3 Comments

I’m in Salt Lake City, Utah!

I haven’t mentioned it, though I do have that little badge over on the right sidebar, but I am attending BLEND Retreat 2013! I met Lindsay (who is one of the organizers of this retreat) last year at FitBloggin where she told me about the event and it sounded like a lot of fun. I love blogging and connecting with people who love fitness as much as I do.

Blend is more about the connections and movement than it is about sitting in rooms learning about SEO or how to write blog posts that will engage more readers or anything like that. While I think that those conferences and topics have their place, I’m happy that this event provides a way to hang out, workout, and go hiking with other bloggers who have similar interests. I’m really excited to meet a lot of new people!

I got here early to check out Salt Lake City, I was originally going to meet up with another blogger buddy, but she ended up having to bail, so I’ve been doing my own thing. I got in at 10am, picked up my rental car and did a little bit of work in a Starbucks before heading over to my hotel.

I’m staying at the Peery Hotel, it’s affordable and charming, it’s also a historic landmark!

So far my big observations about Salt Lake City are

1) Nobody walks around in the middle of the day and 2) People are really dressed up here (not a lot of jeans or yoga pants). I have to say, I feel a bit out of place. I went to the Gateway outdoor shopping center to find the Starbucks and it was a little odd because it seemed like there were a lot of kids just hanging out on the stairs near a big water feature. On a Thursday? Don’t they have school? Maybe they were there for lunch? So confusing. By time I was done the place was empty. Then I drove to my hotel and didn’t see any pedestrians! I realize it’s the middle of the day, but it was really odd to me, in Seattle people are out walking at all hours of the day.

After I checked into the hotel I headed out to the Red Butte Garden that I had read about in the article 36 hours in Salt Lake City from the New York Times. It was the perfect way to spend an hour.

Afterwards my phone was dying and my stomach was rumbling so I headed to a Corner Bakery had some lunch and caught up on emails. I headed back to my hotel, did a little bit more work and realized I was pretty tired so I took a good long nap. I love naps. John called and woke me up because he was looking for his keys. We tried to identify what I could have done with them, I had checked my purse and was sure I hadn’t taken them with me but just in case I checked my laptop bag. Whoops, there they were. That means he doesn’t have a mailbox key or a car key because I have my set with me. Luckily we share our truck with my in-laws so John just had to go over to their place to get their key.

After figuring all that out we got off the phone and I headed to Walgreens to get a toothbrush because, of course, I forgot mine. It was around 7pm and there were some people on the streets, many dressed in skirts, dresses and collared shirts and ties. It’s weird to feel such culture shock in a place that’s less than 2 hours away by plane! I kept thinking that Salt Lake City reminds me a bit of Boise with a hint of Denver, but it’s still very different than any other city I’ve visited.

At Walgreens I watched as an employee politely asked two homeless looking teenagers who had apparently been asking for money to leave. I would say that almost made me feel at home (we have a lot of homeless people in Seattle), but honestly, it seems like we let our homeless camp and solicit wherever they want (we’re also known for our passive aggressiveness).

After purchasing sunscreen, and the toothbrush, I headed back to park my car in my hotel’s lot and headed to another place that NYT recommended, Squatters Pub Brewery.

Luckily it’s just across the street from my hotel! I had a beer and a salad and started missing John. Whenever we travel to new cities we make it a point to try out the local pubs. We’re always delighted with how often they have good and interesting vegetarian options.

I plan on running over to Brickwall CrossFit in the morning for the 7 or 8am class before heading out to Park City where the Retreat is happening. It will be interesting to see if any other city dwellers are running at this time. I bet the reason I’m not seeing anyone around here is because where I’m staying is not very residential, I imagine if I went to a different part of the city I’d be seeing more people on the streets. John grew up in Park City and he told me that it wasn’t that odd that I wasn’t seeing a lot of people out, so who knows.

Have you experienced culture shock in different parts of the US?

May 12, 2013
by MegG
6 Comments

How the 2013 CrossFit Open changed my perspective

The last thing I expected the CrossFit Open to do for me was to change my perspective on the type of athlete I am. I’ve pretty much just always been a runner. Even when I played field hockey in high school, I got the nickname “the wheels” because I was able to get to the ball quickly anywhere on the field. I wasn’t a strong field hockey player, my skills were lacking and my arms were not powerful. Deciding to stay with what I was good at, I focused on running and became a better athlete in that discipline.

When I started crossfit, I was still the runner, and I took pride in that. It was the one thing I was able to do that put me in front of the strong girls who could do everything that I couldn’t, it was my super strength. Whenever I drop in at other boxes one of the first things I tell the coach is that I’m a runner and I have a variety of runner problems (tight hips, weak glutes, tight calves).

When I decided to do the Open I knew that my super strength would not be a part of the competition (too easy to cheat, too hard to measure). There’s no way Dave Castro would put running anywhere near it and so the one thing I excel at would not be something that could help equalize the field for me. While I knew that the last two years have resulted in getting stronger in other areas, I was still nervous about what weights would show up, but also ready to take on the challenge.

It wasn’t until the Open did I really see how far I’ve come.

Not until I was doing all the WODs at Rx, having each rep counted and receiving those no-reps, did I feel like an athlete in the game. And while I ranked at the bottom of those who participated in all of the WODs at my box, I gained a new perspective and a new fire in my belly to start getting more competitive.

Since the Open ended about a month ago, I’ve taken to my everyday workouts with more force, more goals in mind, more to improve on. I barely ran at all during those 5 weeks of the Open. I should have been preparing for those back to back half marathons I had. In a surprising and uplifting chain of events, it looks like staying out of my running shoes and in my CrossFit ones helped a lot.

I chase girls down and keep going, I use my arms and my strong abs to propel me forward. In the gym, I stopped using the crutch of bands for pull-ups and I Rx WODs even if it takes me the longest.

This WOD was 21-18-15-12-9-6-3 of 24” box jumps and Ring push ups (with feet on the box). I was the only female to Rx that day, and I had the 2nd slowest time.

I’m also getting braver on lifts. Hitting a PR on my squat clean while in San Antonio was a huge surprise.

My perspective has changed, I’m not someone who is a runner who also crossfits, I’m a competitive runner, a competitive crossfitter and an athlete with a lot more potential than I previously imagined. I now see that it’s going to be possible to hit big PRs both in running and with lifts as I get into my 30s.

While running is still very important to me, I have proven to myself how much crossfit helps me on the roads. I’m going to start training for a sub 1:30 half marathon in the next couple of weeks, with full confidence that going to crossfit 3-4 times a week will help get me there.

Has anything ever shaken you out of your complacency or proven that you have more potential?

May 7, 2013
by MegG
1 Comment

In My Twenties Tuesdays: My Friends Had Babies

Life changes are different for everyone, but no more so than when you’re in your twenties. The paths chosen (or sometimes thrust upon us) at this time can vary so much. Some of us choose college, some choose career, some choose family, some choose all of the above. My closest friends and I were fortunate enough to go college, where we met others like us who were not ready to have children in our early twenties.

Amy and Colin was the first of us to get married in 2008, we were all 25.

I was a full time babysitter the summer before my senior year of college. I learned a lot about 2 year olds and then infants (as the woman I sat for had her second baby while I was employed by her). I still remember that as being one of the most rewarding jobs I’ve had, and made me want to be a mom, someday.

When I moved across the country after getting my grad degree many of my friends were still in the same spot as me, going to get married but not right away or still single and loving it. A couple of years passed, and most of us got married. When you read the statistics about couples having babies at older ages, I’m firmly placed into that stereotype. Over-educated, married “late” and no babies until after 30 (if we’re lucky). But some of my friends snuck in their first while still in their twenties, and last week, before and after the Nike Women’s Half Marathon, I decided to see all the babies and friends that I could, deeming my trip Baby Tour 2013.

I started in San Antonio, with San and the newest baby, Kai.

What’s up buddy?

It also happened to be the same week of Sandra’s birthday so that was pretty great to celebrate seeing her and meeting her son for the first time. I got to see Kai the longest and watched him for San while she went to the gym one day. It was pretty great. He’s a sweet baby who loves the color red, likes books and is just really cute!

Next up was DC where I got to see Matt, his wife Joy and their baby Vienna. Matt was one of my college friends and first good friends to start expanding his family. Vienna was born August of 2011 while I was living in Seattle and I was bummed that I didn’t get to meet her right away. She’s so talkative and active, she reminds me a lot of Allison, the 2 year old I used to babysit for.

After the race I headed up to Jersey to meet Alicia, Amy and Colin’s baby girl. It was so fun to see how responsive she is and how good she is at reaching for things and playing with her toys.

The best thing to see was how great of parents all my friends are! I mean I wouldn’t expect any differently, and they of course have their own styles but it’s encouraging to see how well everyone is doing with these huge life changes.

I feel really lucky that I got to finally meet all the babies and had such a great time catching up with my friends. It’s clear that life changes a lot when you have kids, I’ve seen my local friends change a ton since having their first babies, but at the core my friends are still the same great people who will be passing on the great things about themselves to their daughters and sons. It’s nice to have that reminder of hope in the future.

While I’m still not pregnant, and still working on it, we’re not in any huge hurry. It’s hard for me to not make running and crossfit goals, but haven’t planned much more racing or competitions after Hood to Coast in August. Maybe then we’ll really buckle down if things haven’t happened on their own. I will not be a mom in my twenties and I’m okay with that, I get to see my friends have these amazing babies and I can learn from them.

May 6, 2013
by MegG
17 Comments

BMO Vancouver Half Marathon 2013 Recap

Going from, “I won’t care about my time in this race”, to “I might care a little”, to “maybe I’ll PR?” made this year’s BMO Vancouver Half Marathon an interesting one.

As I mentioned in the quick edit at the end of yesterday’s post, John and I decided we’d both be happier if we didn’t run together. This left me open to a bunch of different options. My friend Mike said that he was shooting for 1:35- 1:39 and because I’ve been sort of kicking myself for not being in the 30s since March of last year I decided it might be good to try to stick with him. But then Mike mentioned that he wanted to take the start out quickly to take advantage of the downhill:

and I thought that was crazy. Since I blame the hills of the Vancouver Full for F’ing up my knee last year I wanted to be cautious. I figured I’d start out slow, find Mike on the course and then we’d run together. John and I lined up behind the 1:45 pacer, Mike hit the porta potties, and we expected that he lined up well ahead of us. We took some selfies to pass the time.

I got a little sick of standing in the corral. I’m usually a “buzzer beater” when it comes to getting to the start on time, but Melissa (our wonderful Vancouver hostess) had tricked us into leaving early! We arrived there at 6:20ish for what was supposed to be a 7am start and after 10 mins of standing I started to feel a weird fatigue in my heels. The warm-up that the race organizers were putting on did nothing to help this nor did the race starting 15 mins late. I was ready to go! Just as we started shuffling to the line before the gun I gave John and kiss and wished him luck. Then we were off!

(picture from BMO Vancouver Marathon Facebook Page)

So that plan to go out slowly almost worked. Mike had told me that a 7:15 pace would get us to a 1:35. Once I noticed that the downhill wasn’t making my right knee feel any differently and that it was actually my left leg that was giving me some aches I decided to just go for it. I passed a lot of people and did a fair amount of dodging as we ran towards downtown Vancouver.

This half course was brand new to me, which was refreshing. It was fun to hit Chinatown and then get over to Yaletown where I spend most of my time while visiting Vancouver. I was enjoying the sights, finding a groove, and not paying close attention to my watch. Right after the 5k there was a hairpin turn that enabled you to view the people in front of you.

I searched the crowd for Mike and didn’t see him. He spotted me as I passed from the other direction and gave a wave. I had a moment of, “should I slow down and collect him or keep going?” I decided the latter, hoping that I was cruising just fast enough that he’d catch me in the next couple of miles. I saw John on the other side as well and gave a good “John! Love you!” that was potentially louder than I intended because I was wearing headphones.

I kept chugging along, mile 5 being my slowest of the race, which is weird because while there’s a slight incline there wasn’t anything very notable about that part. In mile 6, as we turned off of Pacific Boulevard to get to Beach Ave I turned up the pace again, thinking, “every downhill is an advantage”.

It was here that I started to really tune everything out. I kept on expecting to see the halfway mark, and when I finally did I got a little worried. It read 48 high. I reasoned with myself that it really equaled 50 and that I had to get moving if I wanted to stay under 1:40. (50 plus 50 equals 1:40 because 60 plus 60 equals 2 hours, that’s how I did the math in my head!). About a minute after I had passed the halfway point I must have been either talking to myself or had been breathing very loudly (the latter being more likely because my breathing is atrocious) and a girl looked at me and asked if I was okay. I first thought, “um, why are you asking that”, and then I thought, “I must be doing something weird” and then I got offended thinking that she thought she was much faster than me or something. Because I’m a very reasonable person like that.

I pulled out an earphone and told her “yeah! I’m great!” and explained that we were just on target for a sub 1:40 if we kept that pace. She made quick small talk by complaining about a hill and I thought, “negativity? aint nobody got time for that” so I kind of nodded and dropped behind her for a couple of seconds to plug my headphone back in. During the next aid station I didn’t stop and sped past her.

During the next three miles I just tried to stay on pace. In mile 7 I told myself that if I could pick it up just a bit more and do some real negative splitting that I would then potentially PR! My watch said that my average pace was 7:16, I started really considering going all out, if I could just get it that average pace to dip a little lower I could do the impossible, go sub 1:33 (my current PR) on next to no training.

Right before mile 10, on Pipeline Drive, we hit what felt like a significant uphill, some people had written some really encouraging things on the pavement that I was surprised helped me keep moving up the hill. I find it interesting that I can feel motivated from something as simple as that.

Thankfully the downhill felt more significant than the uphill and I again used it to my advantage. Quads be damned, I was giving this race everything I had.

The last 3 miles are the same course as the full marathon. I didn’t quite realize that until I was on it. Suddenly flashbacks of the pain that I felt and the struggle I had last year were coming to me. This time I felt super strong, and I was ready to start targeting other women and claim a top 100 place in my age group (Last week at the Nike Women’s Half I had placed 103 in my age group, I prefer to always be in the top 100, not that I’m competitive or anything…). It was ironic, as soon as I started focusing on this goal, Run This World (Girls) came on my shuffle. I took it as a sign and blasted past some dudes to find a woman to get in front of. There was a woman in a local club uniform shirt that seemed fast. I wasn’t sure if I could catch her, so I just kept my eye on her, telling myself that I couldn’t stop for water if I wanted to keep her in reach. At a specific point, just as we passed a boat house, where I wanted to give up last year, I passed that “fast looking” girl.

Last year’s death march (look how I’m barely lifting my feet, and my hands are so high, ick!)

This year’s comeback course.

There’s about a mile to go from this spot, though it definitely feels longer, even when you’re feeling good. They changed the finish slightly so instead of turning down and around a block into the finish chute, you could see the banners on Pender Street for the last half mile. I really wish they had a marker for 800m left, it would have helped a bit to know exactly how far I was from the finish. I looked down at my watch as I crossed the line and was very happy with the 1:35 result. Actually more than happy, a bit shocked. I tuned out a lot of this race, listened to my music and focused on staying in it, passing girls as much as I could. I know I’m not going to win a half marathon of this size anytime soon, but I think staying competitive in this way keeps me sharp.

Official results:

16th in my age group. Big difference from 103.

As far as race day atmosphere goes, this was a great year to run Vancouver.

The Good:

-They provided rail tickets (if you were paying close enough attention to get one at the expo) and had a lot of people manning the station which made everything very smooth

-Their system for bag check seemed WAY better this year. I didn’t check anything, but I saw the bags at the end of the finishers’ chute and thought, WOW they really listened to us last year.

-They color coded the corrals. Didn’t matter much to me, my start was fine but it was probably nice for bag pick-up and other logistics.

The Great:

-The weather for the half. Had I ran the full I might have said it was too hot, but starting at 7:15 and finishing before 9 made it for perfect conditions on a sunny day.

-Pulling out an even better time one week after surprising myself with a good finish in DC. While this was not a PR, I’m still thrilled with the time.

The Bad:

-Starting the race late

-The pain in my left foot post race. It’s a little swollen and it’s painful to flex my ankle. Having my PT check it out on Wednesday.

I’m now ready to rest, re-cooperate and in a couple of weeks start training for my next race in Vancouver, SeaWheeze.